


Heal the Scars from Off My Back (I Don't Need Them Anymore)

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Established Relationship, F/F, Flash Fic, Fluff, Tumblr Prompt, an i love you is actually something that can be so personal, the mildest of angsts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 22:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: It'll take some time to overwrite the memory of Beau bleeding out at Yasha's hands. Luckily, this kind of healing goes faster with two people.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 7
Kudos: 137





	Heal the Scars from Off My Back (I Don't Need Them Anymore)

**Author's Note:**

> I got an anon prompt for number 8 on the list: "Saying 'I love you' completely randomly." I decided to combine it with a post I saw that got me thinking today (linked at the bottom). Short but sweet.

It would've been nice if the look on Beau's face when she'd told Yasha she loved her - Beau _loves her,_ gods - had simply washed away Yasha's memory of the sight of her impaled on her sword.

Truly.

But it doesn't go that way. Yasha falls asleep in Beau's arms after the date that changes everything and wakes up sweating, frozen. For a terrible moment in the dimness, Beau's wide eyes are all too familiar.

"Yasha, look at me. It's okay."

Beau's soothing words are incongruent enough with the image in Yasha's mind that the disorientation crumbles. She remembers where she is - where they are, what they've done tonight, together - and pulls Beau close, struggling to calm her breathing. "I love you," she says, because it's true and she finally can, and the way Beau's arms tighten around her shoulders and her back push the memory of the light fading from her eyes further away.

Beau, alive and warm and _hers_ , somehow, kisses the base of her throat and murmurs, "I love you too."

And the words are more than enough to settle Yasha, because hearing them is still _everything_.

She starts a game with herself, after that. Every time her mind conjures the image of Beau under her sword, Yasha reaches for her and tells her she loves her. Every time, Beau's face goes a little soft and that tiny smile comes out.

"I love you too," she always says, and if she wonders what prompts it, she doesn't ask.

She probably doesn't have to. Beau knows her so deeply that Yasha wouldn't be surprised to learn one day that she'd picked up on the overwriting from the first night.

She makes sure to tell her when her demons are far away as well, because the last thing she wants is for Beau to see her looking a little sad and lost every time she says it.

And she doesn’t always use words. Touch is a language of its own, and Beau's pronunciation is rusty from years with no practice. Yasha drops kisses on Beau's head when she walks by, trails her hand along her waist for no reason at all but to touch her.

She supposes in hindsight, it should have been obvious that a fast learner like Beau would start practicing.

The first time Beau lays her hand on Yasha's hip apropos of nothing, Yasha's rooting around in an open chest and startles, smacking her head on the lid hanging open above. She sits down and laughs as Beau crawls up on her lap to push her hand out of the way and kiss the sore spot. The flush of mortified determination on Beau's face, she thinks, is an "I love you" if she's ever seen one - she files the expression away with the others she's been collecting.

* * *

The healing, when it finishes, is an unremarkable thing. Yasha can't pinpoint the exact day the memories stopped hurting. It just occurs to her suddenly, sat beside Beau on a log by the campfire, that it's done. When Beau burns her own marshmallow and leans over to bite Yasha's right off her stick, Yasha sees her unrepentant, sugary smile and nothing else as she kisses her in revenge. It's not until she's sitting upright again with a smug smile of her own and the taste of marshmallow on her tongue that Yasha even remembers to check - and then, having remembered, she doesn't.

When Yasha wakes in the middle of the night to the stars and the sea and the embers all burned low, it's with nothing but the ghost of a haunting - a memory's memory. When she looks at Beau sprawled in careless sleep beside her, Yasha's eyes still fall first on the white crisscross of scar tissue over her ribs. But it's not regret she sees, nor betrayal. Yasha watches the scars rising and falling and sees _life_.

Yasha whispers the words anyway, lets them drift away on the salty breeze as an uncomprehending Beau sleeps steadily on. It doesn't matter that she can't hear Yasha. This particular affirmation, given this particular way, has only ever really been for her own benefit. Beau knows.

Yasha rolls over to kiss Beau softly on the temple, and then she looks back up at the stars and drifts back to sleep with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The post: https://beauregardlionett.tumblr.com/post/643552638151147520/not-to-be-dramatic-or-anything-but-i-just-think


End file.
